"Alriggggght Leeeds!" yells Tom Odell, boyish blond locks topping an understandable grin. The 22-year old from Chichester is the first male winner of the Brits' critics choice award (past honorees Adele, Emeli Sandé and Jessie J), has a sold-out debut UK tour, a record deal with Lily Allen's label and knobs twiddled by Keane's producer.

Odell's songs – combinging his Jeff Buckleyesque golden voice and thumped piano – are so commercial you can almost hear the sounds of ringing cash registers behind the eerily layered backing vocals and pounding drums. The tinkling Another Love has already been used as a BBC trailer. Can't Pretend – "My skin is rough but it can be cleansed" – will surely one-day shift skin products to teens.

Odell is full of such details that thrill mainstream audiences, but although he sings with his eyes closed to signify deep angst, he forgets to sustain the illusion when he opens them to peek at the front rows. In fact, that glint in his eye suggests he's more than another laboratory-created mainstream troubadour, unless sharing his tequila with the crowd is another fiendish move to roughen up his image.

At times, the more livewire side to his character that has seen him brand rock'n'roll "dead" and Liam Gallagher "full of shit" in interviews surfaces in his music. His boot hits the floor for a stomping deconstruction of Honky Tonk Women, and as the sweat pours he sounds less like a blend of the Commodores and Coldplay and more like an exhilarating fusion of the Waterboys and glam-era Elton John. Hold Me is another big, boozy, triumphal anthem, but when Odell returns clutching a beer and suggesting he might "get wrecked" after the show, there's at least the possibility that success will bring fireworks.

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